The madness that has gripped parts of India, leading to the exodus of tens of thousands of people from the North-east — not just from Assam but from across the region — is not only an expression of fear and doubt, but also a stark reflection of the absolute and resolute ignorance that holds much…
Can we sing ‘O mour apuna dekh’ again with joy, freedom and conviction, celebrating our homeland? Is it truly the most wonderful place on earth, unparalleled in beauty, this land of our birth, our ‘mother’? Indeed, perhaps it still is – but despoiled by the depredation of humans, their greed, their hunger for power and…
The northeast used to pride itself on its gender equality. But the gory sexual violence against a teenager in Assam shows the region is no different from the rest of India The sordid sexual violence by a group of thugs against a young woman in Guwahati has stunned people not just in India but across…
Amid pouring monsoon rain, men, women and children run alongside the torrential Brahmaputra, waving at people in white coats on a boat. This is their boat of hope - a floating clinic, equipped with basic medical facilities and manned by doctors and paramedics taking healthcare to people in far-flung island villages that are deprived of…
“It was raining incessantly. Every wave that shook the boat made us nervous. We could not sleep, infact we heard about a woman getting drowned a while ago. We put on our life jackets, but would that suffice? Our food and drinking water was nearly over. One night the boat was massively shaken by a powerful…
As much of India baked in blistering temperatures, anxiously awaiting the belated monsoon rains, the landlocked northeast struggled with the exact opposite problem. An unprecedented surge of continuous rain – the worst in over a decade – led to heavy flooding in Assam, which has submerged thousands of villages, swept humans and livestock away, wrecked…
During my weekly conversation with my sister I told her about the unusual searing heat this June, the problems of power cuts and how we are coping in India. She, in turn, told me that in Washington DC, where she lives, there was a terrible storm that damaged her roof and uprooted trees in her…
Helicopters of the Indian Air Force (IAF) today rescued all the 12 persons on board the boat clinic stranded in the Dibang river here. The Dibang is one of the main channels of the Brahmaputra in eastern Assam. The motorboat had been immobilised after it hit the river’s bottom that had swelled up due to…
A few months ago, Purno Sangma, now the main Opposition candidate for the Presidential election, had come to a meeting that I had organized at Jamia Millia Islamia. It was the Annual Saifuddin Kitchelew Lecture and since I hold the Kitchelew Chair, I had invited him to preside over the session. The main speaker was…
Thirteen-year-old Salman’s day starts at 6 am when he sets off from his home at Shahbad Daulatpur to Rohini Sector 18. Once there, he begins his work: scrounging through garbage. Salman is a wastepicker, one of the three lakh wastepickers in the Capital. One day, Salman hopes to go to school. He has many such…